Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is a worldwide pandemic problem that started in China in December 2019 and within a few months spread to all continents. Very high infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 virus and substantial disease severity caused medical care capacity shortage in many countries. Therefore, real-time epidemic forecasting of the COVID-19 is useful to plan public health strategies like country lockdown and healthcare reorganization.
We used extended susceptible-infected-removed (eSIR) model to predict the epidemic trend of COVID-19 in Poland under different scenarios of the lockdown and lockdown removal. We used time-series data of SARS-CoV-2 infection from March 4 to May 22 2020. Our forecast includes the impact of a timeline of preventive measures introduced in Poland. Using eSIR algorithm we estimated the basic reproductive number and a total number of infections under different epidemic trend scenarios.
Using eSIR modeling we estimated that the basic reproductive number in Poland concerning different scenarios of the lockdown removal is in a range of 3.91-4.79. The lowest predicted number of infected cases would be 263 900 (0 - 1 734 200, 95%CI) if the strict protective measures were maintained until the end of September. However, under different scenarios of precautions removal, a total number of infected cases may exceed one million within the next year.
Relatively early introduction of strong precautions in Poland significantly slowed down epidemic spread in Poland in comparison with other European countries like Italy or Spain. However, early removal of protective measures may result in a significant increase in infection. Data shows that the number of new COVID-19 cases in Poland beyond May 18 is linear what could be a prognosis of a duration of the epidemic exceeding 300 days.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
The study was funded by the Medical University of Lodz, grant no. 503/0-078-02/503-01-001-19-00.
Author Declarations
I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.
Yes
The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:
The employed data are related to unidentified patients, collected and officially published to the public by the Polish authorities, thereby no ethical approval was required to conduct the study.
All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.
Yes
I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).
Yes
I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.
Yes
Data Availability
The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials. These data were derived from the public domain.
https://www.gov.pl/web/koronawirus
https://www.gov.pl/web/koronawirus/wykaz-zarazen-koronawirusem-sars-cov-2